“I cannot resist the ladies,” he said, with a smile, “but you must not be frightened at my story.  For, remember, what I tell you is true.  I do not weave this out of my own brain like your average English novelist has to do.”

I fancied this was directed at me.  Not that I deserved the appellation.  I had written only one novel, and that was a very poor one.  Still I fancied I saw his light glittering eyes turned in my direction.

“I must make a sort of apology, too,” he went on.  “Many of you do not believe in what will be the very marrow of my story.”

“Come, Voltaire, never mind apologies,” said Tom Temple; “we are all anxious to hear it.”

“I mentioned last night,” said Voltaire, “that I had spent some time in Egypt up by the Nile.  The story I have to tell relates to that part of the world.

“I had sailed up the Nile, by one of the ordinary river steamers, to a place called Aboo Simbel, close to the Second Cataract.  Here the ordinary tourist stops, and stops too at the beginning of what really interests an imaginative mind.  There are, however, some fine ruins here which well repay one for a visit.  Ah me! One wishes he had lived three or four thousand years ago when he stands among those ancient piles.  There was some wisdom then, some knowledge of the deep things of life!  However, I did not stay here.  I went with my friend Kaffar away further into the heart of Nubia.

“I cannot speak highly of the rank and file of the people there.  They are mostly degraded and uncultured, lacking”—­here he bowed to the ladies—­“that delightful polish which characterizes those who live in the West.  Still I found some relics of the wisdom of the ancients.  One of the sheiks of a village that lay buried among palm trees was deeply versed in the things I longed to know, and with him I took up my abode.

“Abou al Phadre was an old man, and not one whom the ladies would love—­that is, for his face, for it was yellow and wrinkled; his eyes, too, were almost buried in their cavernous sockets, and shaded by bushy white eyebrows.  Those who love the higher powers, however, and can respect the divine power of knowledge, would have knelt at Abou’s feet.

“This wonderful man had a daughter born to him in his old age, born, too, with the same love for truth, the same thirst for a knowledge of things unseen to the ordinary eye.  So much was this so, that she was called ‘Ilfra the Understanding One.’  As the years went on she outstripped her father, and obtained a knowledge of that for which her father had unsuccessfully studied all his life.

“When Kaffar and I entered this village, she was nearly twenty years of age, and was fair to look upon.  It was rarely she spoke to me, however, for she dwelt with the unseen and talked with the buried dead.  Abou, on the other hand, was kind to me, and taught me much, and together we tried to find out what for years he had been vainly searching.  What that secret was I will not tell.  Only those who live in the atmosphere of mystery can think rightly about what lies in the mind and heart of the true magician.